Tuesday, February 20, 2007

I have reached the sheep, and am beginning to regret my initial excitement at knitting them.

They are kicking my butt.Hard core.

So far I have gotten half way through a row, not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES only to discover I messed up a stitch count somewhere at the very beginning and need to tink all the way back. Did I mention each pattern row takes roughly half an hour to complete now?

My biggest problem is they are not all neat and geometric like the rest of the patterns, so I'm having a more difficult time reading my knitting than I was before, so I don't notice the mistakes sooner.

Le sigh.

Luckily after the first few hellacious rows I'm getting better at reading the knitting and predicting how their little sheepy shapes are formed. Here you can see the leg-less sheep in all their evil splendor.

(the shawl is getting quite large and it is becoming more and more difficult to photograph it well.)

You see, I need a simple project I can put down quickly and don’t need to pay very much attention to for times like knit night, which was last night, and when I take Bill his lunch at work, like I did this afternoon.

I'm using the blue green hand dyed I made, and I'm designing the pattern as I go. Hopefully I'll have a really neat sock pattern for you all when I'm done.

You may remember that these were the 100% wool socks that I knit a bit of sewing thread along the toes. And then later learned that this may not be the best thing for socks. So the other day I went looking around the net and discovered that many sock knitters prefer a stuff called woolly Nylon for a reinforcing thread on 100% wool socks. It's nylon so it's strong, but It's stretchy and soft, so it will stretch with the yarn, and won't cut through the yarn like sewing thread is said to do.

It comes in about 50 different colours, and I found a great deal for them at www.threadart.com about $3 for a 1000 meter spool. (since you only use it on toes and heels, one spool will last a long time!)

Ta da!

I'll be running a strand of the green along the heels of the Naga Socks.It will be and interesting experiment!

Rosita – Make sure it's called "wooly nylon"I had a heck of a time finding it, but it's not normal nylon thread (which is supposedly even worse than cotton sewing thread)Wooly nylon is very elastic and stretchy, so that it stretches with the yarn instead of cutting into it.

Ourika & Sara–Thanks!I'm hoping the design works out; I'm having a heck of a time working out how it is going to work out once I get past the heel. And I'm also discovering I suck at writing patterns out to be understood by anybody other than me.

Sorry to hear that you've encountered a herd of evil sheep, but from where I'm sitting it looks beautiful!

I have a ton of wooly nylon for my serger and I've only remembered to put it in my socks a couple of times. And I'm not sure I even remember which socks have them so I could confirm or deny its usefulness. Now I'm curious and I think I might try to figure that out...

Jen –Thanks, it does look good, and I am really happy with it, I just want it to be really perfect.As for the wooly nylon: I hope it does help, we have a tendency to be quite tough on our socks around here, I think it's partly because the entire apartment (except for the bathroom) is carpeted in a low pile rough carpet, while it is good at hiding dirt, it quite hard on feet and socks.(Bill has already been through two pairs of knit slippers this season, and I've lost my very first pair of knit sock like objects.)

The shawl and socks look awesome! And thanks for the tip about the woolly nylon - I think I will hunt some down. I love to knit with Koigu but I think it is going to need some reinforcing to last well!